"When Your Father Believes in You, You Can Do Anything"

Cathy Garrard's father believed in her, which is why she had the courage to ride a two-wheeler, move across the country, and, eventually, cope with the loss of the very person who made it all possible.

One summer of my early childhood, my father taught me how to ride a bike. Behind the banana seat of my tiny turquoise bicycle, my father installed squeaky metal training wheels to help me gain balance and confidence. I relied on them heavily in the era of no helmets, wobbling back and forth as the wheels screeched on the pavement.

After days of my riding in loops around our Midwestern cul-de-sac, my father called out to me from the front porch, a can of beer in his hand, and enthusiastically suggested that it was time he take the training wheels off. "You're ready, Cath!" he encouraged, smiling. Dad, a natural athlete and Eagle Scout, did most everything with casual ease. He won pretty much every competition he ever entered, and he had the best Zippo lighter tricks on the block. But I gripped the handlebars more tightly, shook my pigtailed head, and insisted that I wasn't ready. He didn't push.

Time has dimmed the memory of whether it was my mother or my older sister who soon told me that my training wheels were tipped upward — by my father's hand? — and hadn't been touching the ground for quite some time. I ran to Dad, who, chuckling, admitted that it was true (though never that he had been the one who'd tinkered with them). Then he deftly removed them and ran by my side for my first official two-wheel spin. He cheered me on when I glided down the street and didn't topple over. I was exhilarated, and I felt invincible. He knew I was ready, even when I did not.

That indomitable little bike rider continued to gain confidence, and nearly two decades later I'd grown into an independent young woman who no longer thought she needed help from anyone. I moved to New York City without a job, but with the bravado of a freshly minted adult. My parents were heartbroken, but Dad never once tried to slow my roll. He carried my overstuffed suitcase into the airport and put me on the plane with his encouraging smile.

I got a cool job and a cute apartment, and I'd call home once or twice a week. After lengthy chats with Mom, I'd hear Dad get on the line. "Hey, Cath!" he’d say in a booming, happy voice. We'd gab for five or so minutes, the longest he could abide being on the phone. (In person, though, he could draw a circle of people around him when he talked. When I'd go home to visit, my friends were just as excited as I was to catch up with him.) Back in New York, at the end of every call, there was always this: "I love you, and I'm proud of you. Please let me know if there's anything you need." It made me feel both successful and secure.

He knew I was ready, even when I did not.

I took pride in assuring him that I had everything under control, that I needed no help. On a meager assistant's salary, I paid all my bills on time, and thanks to countless hours spent with Dad in the garage as a kid, I made minor repairs around my apartment. "Well, you can always call me for bail money," he would joke.

Nearly three years ago, I got a call at work from my sister. Dad had had a stroke, and it wasn't clear whether he would make it. It happened at his dying girlfriend's bedside, 12 years after my beloved mother — his high school sweetheart — had prematurely passed away

Through sheer force of will and thanks to a lifetime of physical activity, Dad made it through. But the bomb in his brain took its toll, and he struggled with short-term memory issues and a lack of balance and coordination. After years of thinking I didn't need him, I was suddenly overwhelmed by how much I did. I had grossly underestimated how much his solid, steady support had shaped my independence and confidence, and I was terrified about what life was going to look like without my dad in it. With all the anxiety and fear packed into having an aging parent on the decline, I would say desperate things to him. "I need you, and you are not allowed to die!" I admit I told him. He calmly replied, "Well, Cath, there's absolutely nothing I can do about that. It's a part of life, and you're going to be just fine." I refused to believe a word, and I tortured myself with relentless spinning wheels of worry for a year and a half while he racked up more health problems.

After years of thinking I didn't need him, I was suddenly overwhelmed by how much I did.

The second time I got a call that he'd had a stroke, I was told he wouldn't make it through the night. A longtime neighbor let me into Dad's house after I flew in, and it was immaculate, genuinely eat-off-the-floor clean. The refrigerator was stocked, there was a full tank of gas in his car, and the stubs for the bills he'd just paid were stacked up neatly on the kitchen counter along with a copy of his completed tax returns. As I marveled — my father had difficulty with both mental clarity and getting around in his final months — the neighbor said to me, "He welcomed you home, kiddo."

In the days and weeks after he passed away, I found it surprisingly easier to miss him than it had been to worry constantly about him. A peacefulness comes with the finality of death, the knowledge that the last chapter of the story of a life — especially one very well lived — has already been written. My anxiety ebbed, and those thoughts of Dad and me and that bike came back as part of a flood of memories he and I shared.

Those superfluous training wheels now seem like the perfect metaphor for Dad's entire fatherly approach. He always made me feel safe and secure, even when he knew I could ride things out on my own. He was proud of my independence, both because he'd had such a strong hand in shaping it and because he too was so self-reliant. He left those training wheels suspended all my life. And I know he's still running by my side — cheering me on — as I glide down the street, trying to stay upright without him.

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